Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from potatoes, onions, milk, butter, pepper, salt, and optional egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the potatoes and onions until tender.

  2. Rub them through a wire sieve with enough milk to achieve a creamy consistency.

  3. Add the butter, pepper, and salt, then bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, stir in the whisked egg just before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Their starch thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, body-rich texture when mashed.
Onions
They add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften during cooking.
Milk
It loosens the mashed vegetables into a creamy, pourable consistency.
Butter
It adds richness and a silky fat mouthfeel to the soup.
Egg
Whisked in at the end, it can enrich the soup and add a little body.

The step that matters

Rub through the sieve with milk. Potatoes release starch as they are mashed, so pressing them through a sieve while adding milk gradually keeps the texture smooth. Overworking cooked potatoes can make them gluey, so mash gently and add milk until creamy.

Swap the walnut

The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, milk, butter, pepper, egg):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, milk, butter, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes